Gallup’s clickbait: Obama’s still pretty popular among …

posted at 2:01 pm on July 11, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

If the White House still looks like it needs remedial training on social media, someone at Gallup apparently has a post-grad degree in clickbait. Based on a data dive on its daily tracking poll on presidential approval ratings, Gallup has produced trend lines on approval by religious identification — a handy way to look at Barack Obama’s relative strength among faith-based groups. The big news is the sharp decline across all religious demos over his presidency and even since the first of the year, but the headline is … well, let’s just say this caught some attention on Twitter:

U.S. Muslims Most Approving of Obama, Mormons Least

But …

Relative rank order of religious groups stable throughout his presidency

That’s because Muslims have been a strong Democratic demo since at least early in the Bush administration. Almost two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats, according to a Pew poll in 2007. Most polls put Republican identification at nearly nil among Muslims in America. It’s not terribly surprising, then, that they tend to be very favorable to Obama:

Seventy-two percent of U.S. Muslims approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing as president during the first six months of 2014, higher than any other U.S. religious group Gallup tracks. Mormons were least approving, at 18%. In general, majorities of those in non-Christian religions — including those who do not affiliate with any religion — approved of Obama, while less than a majority of those in the three major Christian religious groups did.

By the way, this has been true all along, so it’s not exactly news:

The relative rank order of the religious groups on job approval has been consistent throughout Obama’s presidency. In fact, the current rank order, with Muslims most approving and Mormons least, exactly matches the order seen over the more than five years he has been in office since January 2009.

The next paragraph, though, is actually significant:

Moreover, current job approval among each religious subgroup is between five and seven percentage points lower than the full 2009-2014 average for each. Obama’s current 43% overall job approval average is five points lower than his 48% average so far in his presidency.

Gallup includes two charts, one for approval in Christian religion demos over Obama’s presidency, and the other for non-Christians, including unaffiliated voters. The trendlines in both charts are downward, although sharper among Christian religions than non-Christian. There isn’t a single demo where Obama hasn’t dropped in 2014 by a margin larger than the five-plus year average’s MOE. That’s true even among Mormons, where Obama’s average approval levels in his presidency were already atrocious.

Besides, the Muslim demo is tiny and not dispositive in elections at all. That’s very much not the case for the Christian demos, with tens of millions of voters in each, and the decline has been significant over the last five-plus years. In 2009, Obama got 67% approval among Catholics and 58% among Protestants, and his presidential averages among each are 50% and 43%. The 2014 averages are 44% and 37%. Jewish voters, another traditional Democratic demo, are a smaller group but the situation is worse there. Obama started off with a 77% approval rating among Jewish voters, and has a presidential average of 62% — but that’s dropped to 55% in 2014, an arguably dangerous nadir among a traditional voting bloc that Democrats will need in the midterms. Even atheists have fallen off the pace, dropping six points in 2014 from the overall presidential average, 54% from 60%.

Gallup buries the lede here. There’s no surprise in the ranking of religious demos when it comes to Obama approval ratings, but what is a surprise is how much approval has fallen off this year, and how it has done so almost identically in all religious demos.

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I love how people try to make Obama being liked by Americans who are Muslims into a bad thing. Lol

coolrepublica on July 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM

My problem is not that Obama is liked by Muslims, but rather him being liked by all the wrong Muslims. Please share what made you like him all the way back in 2008 – his skin color, or his endorsements by Hamas, Hezbollah, and Louis Farrakhan?

Gallup buries the lede here. There’s no surprise in the ranking of religious demos when it comes to Obama approval ratings, but what is a surprise is how much approval has fallen off this year, and how it has done so almost identically in all religious demos.

Gallup buries the lede here. There’s no surprise in the ranking of religious demos when it comes to Obama approval ratings, but what is a surprise is how much approval has fallen off this year, and how it has done so almost identically in all religious demos.

Resolved, That the Speaker issue his warrant, directed to the Sergeant-at-Arms, or his deputy, commanding him to arrest and take into custody forthwith, wherever to be found, the body of Lois G. Lerner, and bring her to the bar of the House without delay to answer to the charge of contempt of its authority, breach of its privileges, and gross and wanton insult to the integrity of its proceedings, and in the meantime keep the body of Lerner in his custody in the common jail of the District of Columbia, subject to the further order of the House. While in custody, Lerner shall enjoy no special privileges beyond those extended to her fellow inmates, shall not access any computer or telephone, and shall not be visited by anyone other than her counsel, clergy, physician, or family.

Gallup should do a poll re: how many unlikable people seek popularity. No, wait. I guess you can’t poll something like that. Too bad for us. Human nature, though, seems to indicate that people who are not liked would be more likely to put forth a sustained effort into seeking popularity.

Why is it that every time Mormons play Pictionary, a drawing of the devil gets the automatic answer of Barak Obama? Must be the inherent racism of all those old white people.

My Prayer:

Obama is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me buy worthless health insurance,
he leads me to poverty,
he corrupts my soul.
He guides me along to misery
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of death,
I will fear no evil,
for he will punish me;
His rod and your staff,
they will beat me for his pleasure.
He prepares a table before me with kobe beef
and in the presence of my enemies, he throws me a clean bone.
You anoint my head with oil;
just to set it on fire.
Surely your narcissism and love of self will inflect me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of despair forever.

I love how people try to make Obama being liked by Americans who are Muslims into a bad thing. Lol

coolrepublica on July 11, 2014 at 2:04 PM

Barack Hussein Obama quotes on Islam:

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”

“The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam”

“The sweetest sound I know is the Muslim call to prayer”

“We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world — including in my own country.”

“As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam.”

“Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance.”

TarheelBen on July 11, 2014 at 2:35 PM

CONTENTS

1) INTRODUCTION
2) EVIDENCE THAT ISLAM ALLOWS CHILDREN TO ENGAGE IN SEX BEFORE MENSTRUATION
3) EVIDENCE THAT AISHA WAS 9 WHEN SHE CONSUMMATED HER MARRIAGE
4) EVIDENCE THAT MUHAMMAD HAD SEX WITH AISHA PRIOR TO HER FIRST MENSES
5) DISCUSSION
6) CONCLUSION

I recently saw the documentary on the Dancing Boys of Afghanistan. It exposed an ancient custom called “bacha bazi” (boy for play), where rich men buy boys as young as 11 from impoverished families for sexual slavery. The boys are dressed in women’s clothes and made to dance and sing at parties, before being carted away by the men for sex. Owning boys is considered a symbol of status and one former warlord boasted of having up to 3,000 boys over a 20-year period, even though he was married, with two sons. The involvement of the police and inaction of the government means this form of child prostitution is widespread.

The moral hypocrisy is outrageous in a country where homosexuality is not only strictly forbidden but savagely punished, even between two consenting adults. However, men who sodomise young boys are not considered homosexuals or paedophiles. The love of young boys is not a phenomenon restricted to Afghanistan; homosexual pederasty is common in neighbouring Pakistan, too.

That’s because Muslims have been a strong Democratic demo since at least early in the Bush administration. Almost two-thirds of Muslim voters identify as Democrats, according to a Pew poll in 2007. Most polls put Republican identification at nearly nil among Muslims in America. It’s not terribly surprising, then, that they tend to be very favorable to Obama

Is it because Democrats have such similar positions on things like abortion, gays, etc as Muslims (/), or because both groups share an interest in actually destroying the country as we’ve historically known it?